The old gray lady quoted some woman claiming to have voted for McCain the year Ann Althouse voted for Obama who was so offended by how busy Republicans were telling us how we should act in our bedrooms, that it appears writer Susan Saulny had to whip out the smelling salts to prevent her from fainting. This supposed McCain supporter getting her news about the GOP not from the candidates themselves, but from the candidates as filtered through such sources as the Times or CNN.

Of course, Democrats started the conversation, but it was a good conversation to start if the goal was to get some Republicans to say some things that could be used against them. Fortunately, Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate who is going to be the nominee, had the sense not to say much. He was “tepid.” Good! We don’t want the government in our bedroom, so we don’t need a passionate President. Let him stay in his office and coolly and calmly do his job, which shouldn’t have anything to do with sex. He’s not our boyfriend.

Exactly. Read the whole thing. Althouse sounds skeptical (about the political affiliation of the women quoted). And she’s right to be; the Times article does little more than repeat a Democratic talking point.

(If “some” of these women were, as Miss Saulny claimed, “critical of Mr. Romney’s tepid response,” wonder how they feel about Mr. Obama’s non-response to the misogynistic language used by a man who gave $1 million to his Super PAC.)

The White House is preparing a campaign to publicly defend President Obama’s health care reforms just weeks before the U.S. Supreme Court weighs arguments on its constitutionality — a case that could redefine the scope of the 2012 election and mobilize voters on both sides.

Now, to be sure, this campaign is related to the coming arguments before the Supreme Court (shouldn’t they then be trying to sharpen their legal arguments rather than appeal to the public?), but said campaign will once again put the unpopular initiative into the spotlight.

It’s not easy to lose 63 seats in a House election. Before 2010, the last time it had been done was when Joe DiMaggio was still patrolling center field for the New York Yankees. It’s even harder to pull off such a feat when exit polling shows that Americans were inclined to blame the prior president (a member of the other party) for the poor economy. This raises a question that Democrats and the media have been avoiding for the past 16 months: Just how did the Democrats do it?

A new academic study says the answer can likely be reduced to one word: Obamacare. The study, which was conducted by scholars from Dartmouth and elsewhere, finds that “supporters of health care reform paid a significant price.” (more…)